In the fall of 2021, when tens of thousands of Russian soldiers began massing near the Ukrainian border, US President Joe Biden was concerned. This didn't look like regular military exercises. Maybe we should do something about it, Biden thought, and sent the then CIA director to Moscow with a message and a warning: do not attack Ukraine.
We all know what happened next.
Now, when the current CIA director John Ratcliffe made a surprise and secret visit to the Russian capital, we must ask ourselves whether history will not repeat itself, writes Newsweek.
Vladimir Putin did not heed the US warning then, and he may ignore it now.
The root causes that led to the war in Ukraine remain unresolved. Russia believes it has the right to interfere in the affairs of sovereign states and is trying to block the rapprochement between Ukraine and NATO, as well as to stop NATO’s military presence in other Eastern European countries.
Against this backdrop, Ukraine is increasing its military cooperation with Western countries: it has received technology for the production of cruise missiles, and the Coalition of the Willing has expressed its readiness to deploy troops in Ukraine after a ceasefire. Moscow has again indicated that this is unacceptable.
Sources claim that the CIA director has gone to Russia with a warning not to provoke an escalation in Ukraine and the Baltic states. Recent history serves as a disturbing warning about the dangers of assuming that Moscow shares Western views on what is militarily rational.
Putin does not need a major conflict to weaken NATO. He can use political means, among other things, to achieve this. Military provocation is not excluded. A possible theater of military action could be the Suwalki Corridor, separating Kaliningrad from Belarus. If such an operation were to take place and NATO's Article 5 on mutual defense were not invoked, the ensuing political upheaval would be extremely dangerous: political infighting could render the Alliance ineffective.
European and American officials and military personnel should not prepare for a major war with Russia, but rather convince Putin that even a small attempt to test NATO's strength would result in unacceptable losses for Russia.